In Race to Tap the Euphrates, The Upper Hand Is Upstream

By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: August 25, 2002

TELL AL-SAMEN, Syria—
The Euphrates River is close by, but the water does not reach Abdelrazak al-Aween. Here at the heart of the fertile crescent, he stares at dry fields.

The Syrian government has promised water for Mr. Aween's tiny village. But upstream, in Turkey, and downstream, in Iraq, similar promises are being made. They add up to more water than the Euphrates holds.

So instead of irrigating his cotton and sugar beets, Mr. Aween must siphon drinking and washing water from a ditch 40 minutes away by tractor ride. Just across the border, meanwhile, Ahmet Demir, a Turkish farmer, stands ankle deep in mud, his crops soaking up all the water they need.

It was here in ancient Mesopotamia, thousands of years ago, that the last all-out war over water was fought, between rival city-states in what is now southern Iraq. Now, across a widening swath of the world, more and more people are vying for less and less water, in conflicts more rancorous by the day.

From the searing plains of Mesopotamia to the steadily expanding deserts of northern China to the cotton fields of northwest Texas, the struggle for water is igniting social, economic and political tensions.

The World Bank has said dwindling water supplies will be a major factor inhibiting economic growth, a subject being discussed at a weeklong international conference in South Africa starting Monday about balancing use of the world's resources against its economic needs.

Global warming, some experts suspect, may be adding to the strain. Droughts may be extended in already dry regions, including parts of the United States, even as wetter areas tend toward calamitous downpours and floods like those ravaging Europe and Asia this summer. In general, the world's climate may be more prone to extremes, with too much water in some areas and far too little in others.

Both the United Nations and the National Intelligence Council, an advisory group to the Central Intelligence Agency, have warned that the competition for water is likely to worsen. ''As countries press against the limits of available water between now and 2015, the possibility of conflict will increase,'' the National Intelligence Council warned in a report last year.

By 2015, according to estimates from the United Nations and the United States government, at least 40 percent of the world's population, or about three billion people, will live in countries where it is difficult or impossible to get enough water to satisfy basic needs.

''The signs of unsustainability are widespread and spreading,'' said Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass. ''If we're to have any hope of satisfying the food and water needs of the world's people in the years ahead, we will need a fundamental shift in how we use and manage water.''

An inescapable fact about the world's water supply is that it is finite. Less than 1 percent of it is fresh water that can be used for drinking or agriculture, and demand for that water is rising.

Over the last 70 years, the world's population has tripled while water demand has increased sixfold, causing increasing strain especially in heavily populated areas where water is distant, is being depleted or is simply too polluted to use.

Already, a little more than half of the world's available fresh water is being used each year, according to one rough but generally accepted estimate. That fraction could climb to 74 percent by 2025 based on population growth alone, and would hit 90 percent if people everywhere used as much water as the average American, one of the world's most gluttonous water consumers.

Water tables are falling on every continent, and experts warn that the situation is expected to worsen significantly in years to come. On top of the shortages that already exist, the outlook adds to the tensions and uncertainty for countries that share water sources, like Turkey and Syria, where Mr. Aween is among those still waiting and hoping for the Euphrates to be brought to his door.

A Few Miles' Difference

The stories of Mr. Aween and Mr. Demir illustrate how the growing fight for water can make or ruin lives.

Until last year, Mr. Demir, 42, a father of nine in Turkey, was living an itinerant life as a smuggler and a migrant laborer. But on a recent scorching afternoon, he stood sunburned and content, his striped pants rolled above his knees, bare feet squishing in Euphrates mud.

''It seems like we have all the water we need,'' Mr. Demir said, leaning on his shovel and running a hand through his close-cropped hair. What has changed in this swath of southern Turkey is the arrival of irrigation. It is part of one of the world's largest water projects, an audacious $30 billion plan by Turkey's government to spread the Euphrates' gifts across a vast and impoverished region of the country.

By now, Mr. Aween, the Syrian, might have been celebrating, too. Under Syria's irrigation plan, ambitious in its own right, water from the Euphrates should have reached Mr. Aween's door, less than 50 miles from Mr. Demir's.